How a traveling ‘health train’ has become an essential source of free care in South Africa

Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A passenger train in South Africa has been transformed into a mobile health facility. It circulates throughout the country for much of the year, providing medical attention to the sick, young and old who often struggle to receive the care they need at crowded local clinics. For the past 30 years — ever since South Africa’s break with the former racist system of apartheid — the train has carried health workers on an annual journey that delivers primary healthcare to about 375,000 people a year. The free care it delivers is a contrast to South Africa’s overstretched public health care system.